October 25, 2010 | 12:58 PM | By Anna
If I’m not out trying to track down a story, I spend the majority of my time reading. Everything. That’s why I noticed a comment left at the Washington Post– but first, some context. Last week, in this morning roundup, I mentioned that a developer wanted to bring a luxury hotel to the heart of Adams Morgan (and that he might get quite a tax break for doing so). Today, the Post reported:
For the past six years, developer Brian Friedman has been pushing a complex project that he says would reinvent Adams Morgan as a bustling attraction at all times of day, not just in the evenings. He has proposed transforming a historic church, formerly the First Church of Christ, Scientist, into a 174-room luxury hotel. His plan calls for preserving the church building and constructing a 10-story connecting building behind it, where there is now parking.
And he is asking for the city’s help, suggesting that the new hotel not be required to pay property taxes for 15 years after opening.
This article inspired a commenter named MadasH to write (and I really wish WaPo gave us a way to link to individual comments):
Do not give this development any DC tax incentives unless they promise and keep the promise to hire a high percentage of DC residents.We are sick and tired of subsidizing businesses in DC that in return bring all of their out of town friends here to work in jobs that should go to Washingtonians.
Continue reading →
October 25, 2010 | 9:33 AM | By Anna
Good morning, DCentric readers! Pour yourself a cup of coffee– your daily distraction from work dose of links is here!
About those Georgetown Students charged for manufacturing DMT in their Dorm On one of the suspects: “A little socially awkward, but a really wonderful kid with a good heart, and very intelligent. One of the most genuinely nice guys I’ve ever met. Obviously made a REALLY bad choice. But seriously, these are smart boys who made a really dumb decision to do something ‘badass’ and possibly make some money in broke college times. They aren’t drug lords trying to support their brothel or anything like that.” (blog.georgetownvoice.com)
The tea party warns of a New Elite. They’re right. “The more efficiently a society identifies the most able young people of both sexes, sends them to the best colleges, unleashes them into an economy that is tailor-made for people with their abilities and lets proximity take its course, the sooner a New Elite…becomes a class unto itself. It is by no means a closed club, as Barack Obama’s example proves. But the credentials for admission are increasingly held by the children of those who are already members. …how relentless this segregation would be.” (The Washington Post)
Museum of Unnatural History, 826DC open on Saturday “…I’d forgotten all about the faux-museum’s purpose as a storefront for 826DC, the non-profit writing center that’s been running programs in D.C. public schools for the past two years, serving more than 1,000 students. Only now, though, does the center have somewhere to call home, an ample retail space sandwiched between a Pollo Campero and FroZenYo in Columbia Heights Plaza.” (tbd.com)
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October 22, 2010 | 3:10 PM | By Anna
Another response to Megan McArdle’s “Gentrifiers Lament” for The Atlantic, this time from local blog In Bloom. One of McArdle’s neighbors in Bloomingdale penned this:
Gentrification is also hurting middle-income African-Americans and minorities. By “middle-income,” I don’t mean middle-class, because I am far from that monetary threshold. By “middle-income,” I’m talking about myself, friends, and others who are like me: young, educated professionals who make above the poverty level, but not quite enough to afford to buy or to rent in a neighborhood that is ideal to what we are looking for. Whether it’s due to the market, neighborhood, or gentrification, landlords and owners are pricing the rent at such an unaffordable rate that the $30,000-$45,000 income we earn annually looks even more dismal…
my plea to you, gentrifiers *, is to make sure to make this a mixed-income, or rather a melting-pot neighborhood with various incomes and socioeconomic statuses. Yes, the median neighborhood income is probably now well above my $39,000 annual income, but I’m a responsible citizen who works, goes to school, and adds value to our neighborhood and community at large. Please understand that this isn’t so much of a race thing as it is an entitlement thing.
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October 22, 2010 | 8:01 AM | By Anna
Good morning, DCentric readers! While you were contemplating this adorable lion cub, I was at NPR headquarters meeting other Project Argo participants. Thanks for letting me take a break, yesterday.
Juan Williams Tossed From NPR – Ta-Nehisi Coates – The Atlantic “This is not about free speech. Sanchez and Williams are free to say whatever they want–just as their employers are free to dissociate themselves from their remarks in any legal manner they choose. I’m all for free speech. But I would not expect my current employer to allow me to use this space to vent, as fact, all the prejudiced thoughts that fly through my head. I guess I understand how you come to believe that someone in Muslim dress is less American, or that Michelle Obama is actually “Stokely Carmichael in a dress.” But I’m not clear on why, in this era of blogs and social media, NPR then owes you their association.” (The Atlantic)
Gentrification needn’t displace if we do more than shrug “It’s laudable to raise the question of one’s location in a gentrifiying neighborhood—those of us who live in or might move into a such a neighborhood should be self-reflexive about our presence. But McArdle simply shrugs her shoulders at the issue, assuming the effects and changes her investment will bring are inevitable. They’re not, and potential gentrifiers need to talk about the real issues and policies that can solve them.” (Greater Greater Washington)
GW student proposes ‘Christian only’ swim hour “One white, conservative Christian woman, despite being inconvenienced neither by the pool’s regular swim hours nor by the women-only session, takes exception to this arrangement. “As a female, I feel the need to speak up regarding the idiocy of this most recent example of politically correct nonsense. Namely, the audacity of creating female-only swim hours to ‘accommodate’ female Muslim students,” (tbd.com)
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October 21, 2010 | 8:01 AM | By Anna
Good morning, DCentric readers! It’s link-time!
A Culture of Poverty, Ctd. “A relatively straightforward decision, like opening a bank account, makes a lot of sense if you’re middle class and trying to save, but it may actually be counterproductive if you’re poor. It’s really hard to get people to make the leap from thinking their values and behavior will translate to other social locations, to hammer home the idea hat the things that are important to middle class foodies might not be the same things that inform the choices made by the food stamp recipient in Section 8 housing.” (postbourgie.com)
ABRA Report Says Ali Ahmed Mohammed Was Chased by DC9 Employees “As more details emerge, the culture clash that seems to be happening in the wake of the incident is likely to intensify. Though a coming autopsy report could clear up a lot about what happened the night Mohammed died, it might not do much to resolve the tensions that emerged afterward. One man, speaking at the vigil Tuesday night, yelled that “America was built on the backbones of immigrants.” Later on, as the mostly East African vigil participants milled around, the mostly white patrons at Nellie’s Sports Bar on the corner seemed not to notice the grievers, and no one from the vigil seemed to want to wander into Nellie’s for a drink.” (Washington City Paper)
More, still, on the meaning of Rhee “Fenty, who was elected by winning every voting precinct in the city, needed to take the case for reform to the neighborhood meetings with all the energy that had characterized his campaign for office…He needed to compensate for Rhee’s inexperience and modulate her natural belligerence–for example by not allowing her to appear on the cover of Time magazine clad in black and holding a broom, looking for all the world like the 21st century version of the wicked witch of the west.” (voices.washingtonpost.com)
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October 20, 2010 | 4:45 PM | By Anna
Mr. T in DC
1829 1st Street NW, Bloomingdale
I guess I’ll link to The Atlantic twice in one day; Megan McArdle is reluctant about gentrifying her neighborhood.
Yesterday, I rode the bus for the first time from the stop near my house, and ended up chatting with a lifelong neighborhood resident who has just moved to Arizona, and was back visiting family. We talked about the vagaries of the city bus system, and then after a pause, he said, “You know, you may have heard us talking about you people, how we don’t want you here. A lot of people are saying you all are taking the city from us. Way I feel is, you don’t own a city.” He paused and looked around the admittedly somewhat seedy street corner. “Besides, look what we did with it. We had it for forty years, and look what we did with it!”
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October 20, 2010 | 3:34 PM | By Anna
Leeds Museums and Galleries
Amanda Hess has a fascinating post up at TBD, about two D.C. children (who are affiliated with Lifting Voices, a non-profit) who met with Councilmember Michael A. Brown to share their thoughts on gender roles. Jahisua is 14; he is a Freshman in high school. Shalayla is 11 and she’s in sixth grade at a charter school:
“A man’s role in the neighborhood is to be a provider,” Jahisua told Brown. To Jahisua, that role includes supporting “a home, a job, a relationship with his child’s mother, and an education.” In order to fulfill that role, Jahisua said, the government needed to support men with programs like affordable housing, couple’s counseling, anger management classes, job training, and financial literacy.
But women must conform to different expectations, the students told the councilmember. “Part of a woman’s role is having self-confidence to make good decisions, so she’s not pressured to do bad things, like be immodest,” Shalayala said. “She needs someone to look up to.” In order to support women, Shalayla told Brown, “one thing we need to help women be self-confident is affordable shopping, so she doesn’t spend too much on clothes and so she can afford clothes to cover up well, to not be taken advantage of.” Women could also use motivational speakers, job training classes, and community activities “so they have something to do at different times,” Shalayla said.
Jahisua and Shalayla’s takes on gender were the result of “reflection, interviews with adults, and talks with peers”.
October 20, 2010 | 8:00 AM | By Anna
Good morning, DCentric readers! Ready for some links?
America Is Not Post-Racial Yet “In measured tones, my cousin explained that the flowers were for her oldest daughter. Classmates had given them to her after an older white man spat on her and called her a nigger as she ran cross-country practice. The family filed a police report, but the man was gone. My cousin’s daughter is 13.” (The Root)
Virginia 4th-grade textbook criticized over claims on black Confederate soldiers “The issues first came to light after College of William & Mary historian Carol Sheriff opened her daughter’s copy of “Our Virginia” and saw the reference to black Confederate soldiers. “It’s disconcerting that the next generation is being taught history based on an unfounded claim instead of accepted scholarship,” Sheriff said. “It concerns me not just as a professional historian but as a parent.” (The Washington Post)
Somber scene at vigil outside DC9 “Mohammed is an American born in Ethiopia, and in addition to family and friends of Mohammed, members of the Ethiopian community came out in large numbers to the vigil. Some carried signs, others lit candles, and many cried as they listened to emotional speeches. “My son was not a violent man, and he did not deserve to die as he did,” says Ahmed Galtchu, Mohammed’s father. “We have faith in the American system of justice and we know that the truth will come very soon…” (wtop.com)
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October 19, 2010 | 5:59 PM | By Anna
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
DCentric reader Matt kindly pointed me towards a blog I was unaware of– “Just up the Pike“. It is written by Dan Reed, who apparently moved to Philly in August. The link Matt sent me was to a post called, “why are all the poor kids sitting together in the cafeteria?“. In it, Reed wrote:
The biggest sin of the local blogosphere is that Lydia Sullivan at Snoburbia doesn’t get more attention for her thoughtful and provocative posts on the life of the privileged Montgomery County (Md.) suburbs. Over the weekend, she wrote that class, not race defines who you are…
I headed over to Snoburbia and found a post about Lydia Sullivan’s children and their classmates– and how they interact with each other:
This got me thinking about how race is treated in snoburbia. In the local snoburban high school, kids mix seemingly without regard to race. They think nothing of calling someone of another race, “hot.” (Where and when I grew up, one would have kept such a thought to oneself.) My kids and their cohort have friends of white, African American, Asian, Middle Eastern and Latino family background. They don’t talk about race at all. At all. Really. It just doesn’t come up, except perhaps as a descriptor.
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October 19, 2010 | 4:20 PM | By Anna
gnagesh
Z Burger in Glover Park.
I live in Columbia Heights. I end up at DCUSA, or what I call the “vertical strip mall“, almost daily. I was overjoyed that the Target within it expanded their grocery section because I avoid the Giant supermarket near 14th and Park unless it’s an emergency; the last time I was there, it was during a blizzard and the infamously-long lines stretched to the back of the store– and then wrapped around it.
I’ve dined at almost every establishment within a block of the Metro except for the ones that weren’t vegetarian-friendly. I write all of this to say that I know the commercial, congested two-block strip of Columbia Heights between where I live and the historic, Tivoli Theatre, and I know it well. And that is why I am concomitantly happy and annoyed that Prince of Petworth announced the impending arrival of Z Burger, a local chain currently serving Tenleytown and Glover Park. Continue reading →
